Yesterday’s game was a muddy mess at Nationals Park, both figuratively and literally. The rains pelted the playing surface for much of the day. The game itself, encapsulated the great, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The score was a 2-2 tie going into the 9th inning. Up until that point, during the pouring rain at parts of the game, and three separate rain delays, there was hope for a Washington Nationals victory.
A key mistake pushed the game to a 3-run deficit in the 9th inning from what should have been a 2-run deficit. Then a baseball miracle from Luis Garcia Jr. brought visions of a Nats’ victory. Never in the history of the Nationals has a game been tied in the 9th inning from a 3-run deficit in a 2-strike, 2-out situation until Garcia Jr. knocked a baseball just above the left field wall, 351 feet, for a wall-scraping home run to tie the game with the improbable, “Weaver.”
But what happened before that, had the postgame consternation, because the Nationals ended up losing the game in extra innings. With bases loaded in this 2-2 game in the 9th inning, it was a good pitch by Kyle Finnegan that turned into a disaster — because he did not back-up his catcher in case of an errant throw from the outfield — which occurred — as the throw skipped off the wet grass into the Giants’ dugout — allowing an extra run to score. A 4-2 deficit turned to 5-2 when the umpire awarded the runner at third base the advancement to home plate.
The instant gratification, from the Garcia Jr. home run, that sent what was remaining from the 12,423 fans, who spent over 5-hours in the ballpark, enduring over 2 hours in rain delays were ecstatic by the 9th inning clutch home run. What could have been — if Finnegan backed up the throw to home that SHOULD have kept the score at 4-2 instead of 5-2.
Just think if Garcia’s home run played out the same way in a 4-2 game — it would have been a walk-off winner. That’s the message of the “little things” that were not executed by Finnegan. Instant replay backed it up that Finnegan watched the single drop into right field, and he dropped his head in disgust just a few feet in front of the pitcher’s mound, instead of backing up his catcher.
Unfortunately, the top of the 10th inning included two key errors. The ghost runner was caught dead to rights running to third base when CJ Abrams fielded a ground ball and threw wide of third base. Then a safety squeeze on wet grass turned into a go-ahead single scoring that runner from third base. Then the pitcher, Robert Garcia, fielded a grounder, and threw to third baseman Ildemaro Vargas for the force out — and Vargas dropped the ball for the second error of the inning. Garcia got two quick outs, and with bases loaded he threw an inside pitch to the batter who hit a 64 MPH oppo bloop 185 feet to add two more runs.
There were other mistakes and errors in this series. Early in yesterday’s game, James Wood, once again, did not take charge on a ball he has to take, and never called off Abrams as a single blooped in front of him. When this happened before, you chalked it up to inexperience — but it should not happen again and again. While no run scored, it just added to the pitch count and a higher stress inning. This has to be cleaned up. I was at the game, and it was practically empty. It was so quiet that I could hear the outfielders calling for balls, and even cursing from the dugout. Nobody called for the ball that blooped in between Abrams and Wood. Tempers were flaring on social media as fingers were getting pointed. Read the responses.
Is there accountability for anything? At what point does the blame go on the player and/or the coaches, manager, and front office? Of course people want to place blame. But it is a slippery slope on some plays. On others, come on, this is learned in Little League, travel ball, and should be elementary. Making the same mistake over and over is when it looks bad on the coaches as to why it wasn’t corrected the first or second time.
After the game, Martinez gave his side of what he saw — and specifically addressed the Finnegan mistake. Finnegan had another explanation, that clearly calls into question his integrity, when he said to the media, “Just didn’t really have enough time to get back to where I needed to be.” Come on man! You had plenty of time. You weren’t running home to cover a wild pitch. You just needed to be at your spot by the time the runner from second base was going to be trying to score.
Chalk up another loss on the season in extra innings. The team has now lost 8-of-11 extra inning games this season. That’s awful, and in this case was probably avoidable.
